Badger Bushcraft

Tear-Aid - A Packet Full Of Solutions

Written by Phil Brown, Badger Bushcraft Blog Tuesday, 28 February 2012 14:00

There has been no doubt that over the years duct and gaffer tape has certainly had a part to play in our adventures out of doors. Recently we started to look for different products for a variety of solutions and to get them in stock before they were needed.

Whilst it is fair to say that during many escapades we have never had to put "scrim backed pressure sensitive tape", known as duct or gaffer tape to most people, through the same kinds of trials that occurred on the 1970 failed moon landing by the Apollo 13 mission where this kind of tape was used to adapt and repair the carbon dioxide scrubbers and saved the crew of astronauts. However, this kind of tape has accompanied us on many travels, be that several meters wrapped a water bottle or fire kit container to having a roll in the Land Rover.

Over the years we have used duct and gaffer tape to repair all sorts of items from leaking buckets, damaged jerry cans, torn clothing, ripped tarps and tents, etc. These kind of tapes still have their place on our kit lists with a host of possibilities, plus they also make excellent fletchings for atlatl darts.

A recent discovery left us so impressed by a range of merchandise from a company called Tear-Aid that we bought a collection of products to deal with a host of potentially disastrous scenarios to relatively minor issues that could possibly cause discomfort to clients and members of the team.

From personal experience we know what it is like to tear a tarp and for an inflatable sleeping mat to fail or puncture. In 2008 Phil was working on an expedition to traverse the Vercors Plateau in the French Prealps when his very expensive down filled sleeping mat failed on a seam – sadly for Phil this was on the first night on the plateau and he had to be a bit creative to get a comfortable nights sleep.

We were delighted to find a series of products from Tear-Aid that would cater for a host of situations from torn tarp or tent material, a hole in an expensive waterproof jacket, the proverbial hole in a bucket, et al.

Tear-Aid manufactures a series of solutions that we shall be keeping in the Land Rover in case of emergency. These include:-

• Tear-Aid Fabric Repair
• Tear-Aid Vinyl Repair
• Tear-AidUnderwater Repair

Armed with these three products in our arsenal it is potentially possible to patch and repair a variety of material including:-

• Canvas
• Rubber
• Sunbrella®
• Plastic
• Nylon
• Fiberglass
• Aluminum/Aluminium
• Stainless
• Steel
• Polyethylene
• Polypropylene
• Polyurethane
• Gor-Tex®
• Dacron
• Polyester
• Hypalon
• Vinyl and vinyl coated products

As with many items of kit and safety equipment we have them available and to hand, but we hope that we never have to use them. With Tear-Aid products on the Badger Bushcraft kit list we hope to be able to affect repairs to keep both the team and clients comfortable, dry and safe.

We shall be reporting how we get on with these products as the needs arise.